from a year ago
She comes at me with a Sharpie.
“Do you think this will work on my eyebrows? Will you do them for me? Here…”
“No Grandma. You don’t want to use that. What happened to all those eyebrow pencils we bought you last time?”
“Hmmmmm….I don’t think I have any make-up”
(Grandpa from the living room) “They’re all over the house…who knows where they are.”
I put the Sharpie back on the desk and start rummaging through her dresser. I come across a bag of cosmetics.
“See Grandma…you still have make-up. Do you want to get ready?”
“Oh yes…just my eyebrows.”
There are two eyebrow pencils inside. They are light brown. I’ve never used an eyebrow pencil. Grandma Mary has all her life. I remember my mother saying Grandma did her eyebrows everyday.
My mother used it on me for Halloween and and an occasional dance recital. I was a Topsy Turvy Flower. I wore a lime green swim-suit type outfit and a matching flower made out of netting on my hip. I am awkwardly posed forever in this picture against a rainbow background with one hand on my shoulder and the other stiffly jutting out of my thigh. Several years later I think I’m mimicking a teapot. But my legs are situated perfectly, one slightly craned behind the other. Poise training from Miss Ginny. A lime-green explosion of fabric coming out of my head.
On my mother’s side, their eyebrows are thin and manageable. Mine are full and unruly arched. Without tweezers I know they would grow together. But there are hints of “the arch” in their eyebrows. I would like to think it came from them…from someone at least. A tiny feeling of shame creeps in over the fact that I don’t even know how to use the eyebrow pencil. If Grandma Mary made the effort to do them daily, while running after five kids, at least I could try every once in awhile.
“I tell you what Grandma, you do my eyebrows and I’ll do yours.”
She takes my face in her hands and studies it.
“Yes….they could use it here….and here. A little thin.” She points to the inside parts…where they begin by my nose.
Intuitively I grab my camera. If something important is happening, it ends up in my left hand and I participate with my right. It is an odd habit.
She starts coloring them in. I hold the camera away from me, trying to get us both…but it never fires off.
Her turn. I take the pencil in my right hand, camera in the left and start coloring in the thin parts. I remind myself this is just like doing a drawing. A little bit at a time, snap…..light, conservative strokes….snap.
I don’t want them to look fake.
simply lovely.